Curbside Shopping

Today was one of those serendipitous days that you just couldn't have foreseen.  I've been working on cleaning, organizing, and decorating the girls' rooms upstairs.  I have my heart set on finding an old beat up chandelier, making it beautiful again, and hanging it in their bedroom.  The weather was supposed to be nice so I thought we should go yard sale shopping.  I told the girls they could each have $1 to spend and they were pretty excited to get shopping this morning.  I did a quick check on craigslist to see if there were any hot spots we should hit.  Looked like Norwalk would be the city we would check out - another nice little town (although much bigger than our town!) south of Des Moines.  If it really bombed we could just head north into Des Moines.

There is nothing worse than heading out with anticipation of that great find, and coming home empty handed. But no fear of bombing today.  What I didn't realize (only because I hadn't checked my list from Des Moines ReUseIt group) was that April 30-May 1 are the spring clean-up dates for Norwalk.  That means you can pretty much put anything out on the curb, and they will come haul it away, saving you a trip to the dump.  It also means a lot of great curbside shopping.  Plus, to take advantage of the clean up, a ton of households were having yard sales, and by late afternoon, what hadn't sold was now sitting in the pile on the curb.

Here are some of our free finds today.  We will start with the biggie... a lovely new grill just in time for Mother's day....hmmmm....okay, a month early for Father's Day!  (I don't grill!)  The grill we have we paid $10 for at a yard sale three years ago when we moved here.  It was pretty old and ugly, and we had to replace some parts, but it has gotten the job done.  This one is definitely an improvement and even has a rotisserie attachment.  I'm pretty excited about that!


Chairs!  We got these two chairs, plus 3 basic white plastic outdoor chairs.  I won't spend money on outdoor chairs so I was so glad to pick up some for free.  They will come in handy for when we have our small group over later this month for a b.b.q. and bonfire. (grill will come in handy too!)
Oh, and the stroller - free!

See the t.v. on the right?  That would be the one David wants for our bedroom but has been upstairs in the girls room.  See the t.v. on the left?  That would be one we picked off the curb and the table to put it on was also picked up from another curb.  Perfect size for the girls and has a built in vcr that actually works.  We actually picked up two small t.v./vcr combo's.  David is going to carry the other one, which is smaller, with him for work so he has a t.v. to show customers when it isn't the satellite that is the issue, but their television set.  There were so many television sets on the curb it was pathetic.  David was drooling.  He actually picked up a really nice set, which I had no idea what we were going to do with, but he had to leave it in order to fit the grill in the back of the van. (shwew! saved by limited space!)


A lovely curbside find - a Princess kitchen.  I told the girls we could get this one if their mostly broken, dirty, bulkier kitchen set goes out on our curb.  They agreed.  I'm liking this trend of smaller. 

Yes, that is one of too many free animals that found their way home with us today, but so is the little chair she is sitting on.  Loving the chair!


I spotted a bit of pink fluff sticking out of a bag so decided to check it out.  That curiosity netted me three dress up outfits - a princess, a queen, and a ballerina.





















I also picked up some other miscellaneous items.  But, alas, no chandelier.  I am not fretting.  Yard sale season has only begun!


Posted in: , on Saturday, May 1, 2010 at at 10:59 PM  

1 comments:

  1. Michelle On May 1, 2010 at 11:42 PM Wrote

    Nice scores! Our city has the same sort of "Recycling Days". People troll the neighborhood looking for good stuff. Unfortunately, if you happen to set something that you have no intention of giving away too close to the curb, it's gone. LOL

     

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